1. Technical Field
The present invention relates to a mobile communication device, and particularly to a mobile communication device capable of quickly dialing a desired telephone number in a simple and effective manner.
2. General Background
In a mobile communication device (e.g., a mobile phone), it is inefficient for a user who frequently calls a certain party to dial all the digits of that party telephone number each time a call is placed. To solve this inefficiency, mobile phones have been provided with a phone book function for storing frequently used telephone numbers for future use. When dialing a telephone number using the phone book function, the user presses a function key and a scroll key one or more times to retrieve the desired telephone number. Once the desired telephone number is retrieved, the number can be dialed automatically by means of another key entered by the user. This phone book function is useful for the purpose of dialing a telephone number that the user cannot remember correctly. However, the speed by which the number can be dialed from the start of the process is limited, since the user may need to press the scroll keys repeatedly until the desired telephone number is retrieved. In the worst case, the user may press the keys more times than the number of the digits in the telephone number.
In another approach, mobile phones have been provided with a speed dial function for registering frequently used telephone numbers in association with unique hot keys (generally digit buttons). The user can dial the registered telephone numbers by pressing the associated hot keys, but needs to remember the telephone number or party associated with the respective hot keys. Accordingly, the user typically needs to separately note the telephone numbers or parties associated with the respective hot keys, which is cumbersome. Further, when the mobile phone stores a plurality of telephone numbers, the hot keys may be limited and does not meet all the stored telephone numbers.
Another technique that has been introduced to facilitate dialing has been to equip the mobile phone with a history telephone number list and a redial key to implement a redial function. The redial key, as well known, is used to redial the last telephone number dialed. The history telephone number list has a limited storage for storing the telephone numbers communicated (e.g., dialed or answered) recently. The telephone numbers are listed according to a temporal order they have been communicated, typically, the most recent one will be listed in front of all others. Consequently, when the users want to dial a particular telephone number communicated early, they may have to spend more time retrieving the desired telephone number from the history telephone number list. In addition, some of the telephone numbers listed may repeatedly appear when they are dialed more times. As a result, some frequently telephone numbers may be replaced by the repetitive telephone numbers.
What is needed, therefore, is a mobile communication device that applies an improved dialing mechanism, so that the users can quickly and easily obtain the desired telephone number, and dial the desired telephone number in a simple and effective manner.